all the meddling we've done down there going back to the formation of Israel out of Palestine.
Well, really all the problems started after WW1 when Europe carved up the Ottoman Empire, Israel fucked it up further though.
I really do not understand what is so incomprehensible about the idea that you fight your enemies.
Fighting your enemies is fine, the issue is whether it's effective or not. If we could somehow rehabilitate the radicalized muslims and put an end to the whole affair then that'd be, by far, the best option, but just shooting the folks that are already there won't fix anything, it means it will all continue just with new faces and names.
ISIS was given a chance to rise from the remains of Al Qaeda because the US packed up and left. They underestimated the true nature of the situation. Keeping a strong presence in the region and swiftly stomping anything like ISIS before it even gets off the ground would eventually wear them down.
Not if we get ISIS to fuck off and then leave and quit fucking around down there after the fact. They attacked us and killed American citizens, we should retaliate and once that's over we get the hell out of there. I'm not a supporter in the Iraq war and all the meddling we've done down there going back to the formation of Israel out of Palestine. We should retaliate against people who attack us but after that I don't think we should stay around making sand castles and getting more soldiers blown up.
Well then, at least this myriad of opinions shows that we're all equally conflicted about how solve the problem.
Vergil, as Crossfire said (or at least as I interpreted what Crossfire said), ISIS rose from the remains of Al-Qaeda partly due to there not being a strong military presence in the Middle East, whose to say the same won't happen when ISIS collapses/is marginalised?
Crossfire, as Vergil said (or at least as I interpreted what Vergil said), why should we stay down there? History has shown time and again that people don't like to be occupied regardless of whether that occupation is beneficial. Do you really want to get stuck down there as soldiers are needlessly eviscerated by a guerilla movement that isn't just motivated by Islamic extremism but by nationalist ideas as well?
By the way, this isn't a very good topic of discussion. I know basically nothing about nation building, which is more or less what I'm advocating for, and you guys - presumably - no nothing about dissuading extremists through military strategy; this just makes for a whole bunch of uneducated opinions on very complicated matters.